CityEdge Alliance
The road to success

The problem

The CityEdge Alliance, comprising Fletcher, Higgins, Beca, Coffey, Hick Bros and the New Zealand Transport Agency, was building the 22km four-lane Hamilton section of the Waikato Expressway. The alliance tested its work and had thousands of reports in its project information management system containing the test data. But there was no quick and easy way to find specific data or visually represent the spread of testing along a stretch of the project.

The solution

CityEdge Alliance manufacturing engineer James Higgins and process manager Vicky Wells looked to Company-X solutions architect Luke McGregor to design and develop a software solution. Luke did some rapid prototyping and explored the different ways that the data could be visualised. Company-X gave CityEdge Alliance its first designs to look at in less than a week and the solution was iterated from there. The final solution was ready for use three months after work began and used daily by about 50 CityEdge Alliance users.

The verdict

“I was looking for a local software company to help. Company-X had previous experience in road construction so were familiar with much of the terminology,” Vicky says. “Luke came up with innovative ways to solve the requirements challenges we presented to him.”

“We were impressed with a working concept within a couple of weeks,” James says.“Luke showed us what became the Waikato Expressway Testing Application or W.E.T.A early on. It looks and feels like what we have today. It’s pulling everything together.”